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By Obadiah Shoher
February 9, 2007
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"If you will walk in my statutes.... you will eat enough and dwell in your land safely. Leviticus 26
The promise is significantly simple. Hebrews are not offered riches or dominance, but food and safety. People, ethical in the biblical sense, could not gain all the pleasures the world offers, but they could live comfortable lives. In the race to receive everything, people chase opportunities and exploit others' weaknesses; that strategy is properly called a pursuit of happiness. A pursuit might bring great rewards in the end, but it is not comfortable along the way. Judaism and religion in general are not suitable strategies for maximizing the benefits.
Judaism opposes the pursuit of maximal pleasure with detailed ethical regulations. Every doctrine turns into its opposite when taken to the extreme. Unhindered pursuit of happiness becomes a life of dissatisfaction and unhappiness. People continuously see new attractions and run after them without enjoying the basic pleasures they already have. They are always on the march: great spoils, like a carrot before a donkey, lure them, but perpetual camp life is terrible and unsatisfying. Religious people do not join the quest for spoils, and spend comfortable lives with their families in their communities while the others run after jackpot rewards.
A second Jewish state, Judea, would be religious and necessarily restrict some freedoms. Just which freedoms we would lack? A freedom to buy drugs, as in Tel Aviv? A freedom to become gay? In all honesty, which parents remain indifferent if their -- not someone else's -- son becomes a gay? Do we prefer gays and drugs to the Torah? Do we want a society where we fear for our children: daily in schools that brainwash them, of drugs in the evening, of Muslim criminals at night? Do we want a freedom for our spouses to cheat, or our wives to perform abortions? Do we miss an imaginary Hollywood blonde so much as to cheat on our wives? Or would we not rather abandon the televised dreams that make us ever-hungry for lust, and live a comfortable family life?
Extreme enjoyment is harmful just as any other extreme. It is a plague to seek the best, the most. Why don't we live content with some limitations in return for great spiritual and practical comfort? When killing an animal, don't take its life till the last drop -- leave the blood. It doesn't matter whether the life is really in blood, or the blood only symbolizes life. By abstaining from blood, we show the last respect to the killed living being. By spilling its blood, we bury the animal. Do we miss a blood-soaked sausage so much as to refuse that symbolic burial to the animal which died for us to live?
If we don't want our children to watch pornography, why watch it ourselves? Is there anything particularly pleasant in the pounds of sperm spread over the TV screen? Ostensibly rational people call the abhorrence of menstruation and sex scenes superstitious. Equally rational communists were certain they could explain and consciously correct the societies.
Human societies are too complex for straightforward explanations; ethics developed over millennia, and is rational even though we don't see its roots. Besides, we do see the reason behind the repugnance of blood and sperm: the fundamental sacredness of life. Those two substances are firmly associated with life, and their loss is instinctively disgusting. Back to pornography: Judea would apply zoning laws to it; its inhabitants would need only to drive to Israel or Lebanon to enjoy the abomination.
People do not exist in a vacuum; even their non-violent acts offend others. A freedom should not insult. One cannot scream, "Niggers!" in Manhattan, nor should one publicly violate the Sabbath in Judea. The extent of liberties depends on the tastes of the overwhelming majority. There is a room for dissent: in private, tactful advocacy, or simply moving to a more permissive locale. A county-sized country could be religious without damaging others.
Judea is not going to execute for religious violations. Torah prescribes caret -- expulsion -- from the offended community. The state which pays certain reverence to religion might not be ultra-liberal, but nice and safe.
How odd is it to refuse Arabs into Judea? No more odd than refusing people without a visa into any other country. No one likes to live with strangers. White Americans worry about their children strolling through Black neighborhoods. Jews prohibit their children from walking through Muslim crowds. It's not racist: it's prudent. Private communities check applicants before selling them houses, and many apartment houses refuse to rent to welfare recipients. No Protestants live in the Vatican, and no Christians in Mecca. Judea is not xenophobic. We enjoy friends, but live with families.
Judea would be exotic. People live on legends. Westerners will support Judea more than secular Israel. They support exotic Africans more than the next-door neighbors. Westerners have anti-colonizing sentiment, and present-day Israel fits the West's cognitive profile of a colonizer. Judeans will fit better the profile of pioneers, modestly pursuing a decent life. A bit like the Amish. Perhaps a bit more heimisch: familiar, homey.
People want to differentiate themselves to a degree. Jews associate with all odd movements from political left to religious experimentation. If Judea would be a promising enterprise, many non-observant Jews would join her. A respectable state under the nuclear umbrella.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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